XL-entLady's Account Talk

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Great Game ! The only down side I experienced was seeing two Quarterbacks
moving the chains like warriors and remembering that my Number 5 can't seem
to do the same in the tough games. (ie...McNabb). I've seen a joke running
around the web too, it says it all;

Mrs. McNabb: Hear you go Donavan, have some nice hot Chicken Soup.
Donavan: Mom, why do you always serve my soup to me in a can.
Mrs. McNabb: Thats simply Donavan, When ever you get close to a Bowl,
you always start choking ! :nuts:

Maybe next year ! Go EAGLES ! ;)
 
The following article talks about trailing stop-losses. I wish we had that possibility in our TSP accounts! But we don't because we're investors, not traders. :rolleyes: Anyway, I thought the following article had some good points.

Bear Rally ETFs: Are You Prepared for the Cardinal to Take Flight?

"In 18 previous bear markets that include the 1930s and 1970s, Ned Davis Research found that mini-bulls in those bears averaged 64% in about 1 1/2 years. How do we participate in this sort of probability?

For one thing, you have to recognize that shorter-term moves higher are best captured by trading. Specifically, if the S&P 500 can hold its mid-November low of roughly 750, you'd want to be prepared to purchase in the weakest and scariest of environments.

There really isn't a bad buying decision... only a failure to sell to protect one's self. You could even purchase the S&P 500 SPDR Trust (SPY) today around 820. You could set a trailing stop-loss at 735, about 10-11% lower than your entry point.

If the market caves completely, it would have to breach the current bear market lows of 750. That alone would be reason to protect against further stock price erosion. But more importantly, you would want to exercise your trailing stop-loss sell discipline and take the small loss.

On the other hand, the market has been fairly determined to hold its lows so far, and it could be ready to make a post-earnings season/stimulus package/hope rally. The 820 purchase could easily be 980... a 20% gain that you might sell for a profit. (Using a disciplined stop-gain of 20% and a trailing stop-loss of 10% is far more powerful, warts and all, than any buy-n-hold-hope endeavor.)

The 20% bear bounces are almost pre-ordained. In fact, we already experienced the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) catapult approx 24% in the 6 weeks that followed the November 2008 lows.

The bigger question is, how might a person discern between a bear bounce in the 20%-25% range, and a mini-bull in the 60%-65% range? If you've sold for a 20% gain, what can you do to participate if the mini-bull does take shape? While it is impossible to discern a quick bear rally that abruptly comes to a halt from a mini-bull that climbs 60 percentage points or more, you can always buy again. .....

Selling to lock in a profit is never a bad move. You've made money! Similarly, you can't have a bad purchase decision... not ever. Your reason for buying is as sound as that of any hero, guru or god in the investment universe... believe it!

The only bad decision is failing to sell for a smaller loss. If you bought the iShares Emerging Markets Fund (EEM) at 35, you should have decided beforehand the most that you were willing to risk. Perhaps that was 15%. In that case, you would have sold at 29.75 and gone on to invest another day. There would be no reason to ride your 35 price point down to 20 for a 43% loss....."



http://www.etfexpert.com/

Lady
 
I just got through participating in "the only bad decision....".....I think the only good decision i made this month was to root for the steelers!!!
 
Stocktiming.com had another interesting article this morning. Hope you find it as informative as I did.

Lady


http://stocktiming.com/Tuesday-DailyMarketUpdate.htm


A confused market at a critical decision point?
Indecisive: Pit Traders are saying that this Friday will be the important day for the market.
Decidedly Negative: One of the big Wall Street firms is telling their clients that the market is going down for a November retest. (How would they already know that on Tuesday?)
Bullish actions: Citigroup announced that it will deploy $36.5 billion to issue mortgages, make credit card loans and buy distressed assets in the tight credit markets in the coming months. (Of course, they also said that this would be government money that they were using ... they received 45 billion from the government, will keep 10 billion, and lend out 35 billion.)
At a critical point: The "core holdings" held by Institutional Investors is at a "critical, market-pivot-point".
A Bullish China: Many Wall Street analyst are expecting the U.S. to show an economic turn around in the second half of the year. Not so in China ... they are expecting an economic turn around in the first half of this year (the second quarter). Their Shanghai Composite Index and Shanghai 180 are both appearing to support that expectation. Would a bullish China be bullish for the U.S.?
Is that enough confusion for you? Who's right? When do we get to know who's right?
I think there are two time frames to focus on right now as to where the market will go.
The first is a short term, immediate time frame, that will be facing us in the next 2 to 5 days. This "immediate time frame" is based on a critical pivot point for the Institutional "core holdings" index. This will be a "show-down" where an important breakout direction will occur for Institutional holdings in the next few days. Based on the confused expectations above, the market is split on which way this Bull/Bear confrontation will turn out.
The second is a longer term time frame, that faces the reality of what will really happen in the second half of this year. The forward expectation announcements coming out in late April, May, and June, will be part the critical information upon which the judgment will be made. At that time, the economy and the U.S. will have found hope to move forward, or despairing reasons to remain stuck in a prolonged recession.
For now, focus on what happens on the immediate time frame. Oh, and what is happening in China on the short term?
Take a look at the Shanghai chart that we post everyday on our Advanced Subscriber site. There are two important indicators to watch on this chart ... the Relative Strength and what our S.T. Accelerator is doing.
Bottom line: Our S.T. Accelerator has been bullish and strong. This is lighting a fire under the Relative Strength which just had a nice jump up last night. The Shanghai Composite reacted positively with a 2.44% up move last night.
Food for thought: While many thought that the U.S. was the first country to get into trouble and would be the first to get out of trouble, maybe it will be China that starts to make a recovery first. If this turns out to be the case, would the U.S. markets keep going down while China goes up, or would the U.S. follow China?
*** Feel free to share this page with others by using the "Send this Page to a Friend" link below.

cs.png
 
Here's an article to make you think. Look at what the Russell 2000 did as we came out of the 2003 bear market bottom.


Stock Market is Bottoming, Equities VS Gold Bullion
by Chris Vermeulen, 2/3/2009

"Stock market looks like it has bottomed forming a similar pattern as it did in 2003. What is the better investment during an opportunity like this if this is the bottom: Stocks, Gold Bullion or Mining Stocks?

The charts below will really open your eyes as to how similar today's W looking bottom is to the W shaped bottom in 2003. Of course 6 years later the markets trade and move faster than ever before because of technology allowing traders to track and trade stocks from anywhere with a click of a button. So this years bottom formed much quicker.

Traders, individual investors, hedge funds, financial institutions and even some of the guys on CNBC are starting to buy stocks and etfs (exchange traded funds) at these price levels. I remember the market bottom in 2003 and it was much similar to the type of energy buzzing these past few weeks. Of course there is a lot more drama with Obama as president, Printing US Dollars, Scandals and bad news hitting the market day after day. But what makes all this normal is that it cannot get much worse in the news and everyone is expecting it for months to follow. Traders and investors don't even flinch when bad news comes out anymore and to top it off the SP500 has formed the same pattern it did during the last bear market bottom in 2003. Check out these charts below.

Performance Chart of SP500, Russell 2000, Gold Bullion and Gold Miner Stocks
This chart shows how well different investments performed during the last bull market. The SP500 was the steady gainer posting a 95% gain; Gold Miners Stocks posted a whopping 210% gain but had wild swings which were big enough to shake out even the best traders. Gold bullion and the Russell 2000 performed very well providing a 130% profit with manageable price swings....."

http://safehaven.com/article-12513.htm

Lady
 
A subscriber email I got last night expressed the following opinion:

",,,This is just not a market for small fry like us. This is a market controlled by rumors and government intervention. This is a market where insiders (like the ones who bought 250 million in SPYDER’s last night) have the advantage. These are people who can buy information that you and I just are not going to be privy to...."

This morning Fibtimer's Market Timing Pro gave a good synopsis of where we are right now:

"The S&P 500 Index (SPX) has been trading mostly sideways since early December 2008. Huge daily rallies look like potential breakouts, but they are then followed by just as huge declines. Since early December, the SPX has broadly traded between 920 on the upside, and 800 on the downside. That is a fairly wide range, but there is a tighter range since early January, and that is 875 on the upside and 800 on the downside.

Sideways markets are frustrating and typically result in losing trades for those who attempt to trade them. It is best to await a breakout. But sideways markets never last long. There will be a break one way or the other, and it will likely be explosive considering how long the markets have been held in check. A break below SPX 800 will quickly result in a test of the bear market lows at 752.44. A close above SPX 875 will result in a run to SPX 920." [emphasis added]

http://timing.typepad.com/

Patience, and buckle up. We'll know which direction it goes soon .... Until then I'm still parked in the G Garage.

Lady
 
XL-entLady said:
Patience, and buckle up. We'll know which direction it goes soon .... Until then I'm still parked in the G Garage.
Lady
Click to expand...

Great reading Lady! Some of the nicest Investment (not inwestment)
Vehicles are Garage kept until a sunny day (both pun's intended). :toung:
May yours come sooner then later. Sunny side up to 925! I only wish
my gut kept me in longer. Now I'm in a pre <1% position with no room
to play. Its ok, we have a long year ahead of us and I'm determined to
make a comeback. ;)
 
Price by Volume

Interesting article of the day:


Chart of the Week: SPX Price by Volume

By Bill Luby | February 07, 2009


There are many methods that technicians use to help determine when various market moves may run into significant support and resistance. Moving averages are one common method, pivot points are another, and Fibonacci retracement levels are one of my personal favorites.

Another method of gauging support and resistance involves the use of charting price by volume. As I have lately heard very little about price by volume charts, this seems like a good time to make these charts the subject of this week's chart of the week.

In the graphic below, in addition to the standard daily volume vertical bars at the bottom, I have used one of the StockCharts tools to plot horizontal bars that represent the total volume for all the days in which the closing price fell in the range described by each horizontal price by volume bar. The longer the bars, the more volume that was transacted within that price range. For more detailed analysis, I have also color coded the price by volume bars so that total volume for each price by volume range can be further decomposed into up volume (gray) and down volume (red).

In terms of time frame, I have used SPX data from the beginning of October 2008, when the SPX first dipped below 1000, to illustrate possible resistance. Note that during this 18 week period, a large portion of the volume fell in the range of approximately 820-920.

With the SPX currently just one point below its 50 day simple moving average (dotted red line), additional upside movement may be harder to come by. According to price by volume charts, however, the biggest resistance should be in the 890-920 area, where not only is the volume by price bar a long one, it is also predominantly red from previous selling pressure.

If the SPX can clear 920, then resistance (as indicated by the length of the bar and also the ratio of red to gray area) seems to fall off dramatically, with 955 looking like a much less formidable hurdle on the road back to 1000.

Of course the charts have no idea what Geithner is going to say on Monday, nor how the House and Senate will resolve their different perspectives on what needs to be included in the economic stimulus package.


[source: StockCharts]​

Lady​
 
VERY cool chart Lady! But I want to know how to make one myself...I don't see an option for "price by volume" on the free stockcharts options?
 
Corepuncher said:
VERY cool chart Lady! But I want to know how to make one myself...I don't see an option for "price by volume" on the free stockcharts options?
Click to expand...
Glad you liked it, CP!

Nope, unfortunately that's an option they make you pay a few $ for. So I do pay, because you can do very cool charts. And I love the technical stuff so I think it's well worth the $.

Lady
 
Corepuncher and lady
You can make these charts in free stockcharts. Just choose the overlay vol by price

This statistic gives on a good idea of where the market has been, but not necessarily of where it is going.
 
Uptrend said:
Corepuncher and lady
You can make these charts in free stockcharts. Just choose the overlay vol by price

This statistic gives on a good idea of where the market has been, but not necessarily of where it is going.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info, Uptrend! Still learning here, so I'm glad to be put straight on this one! :)

Lady
 
I'm trying to decide how many days this rally is going to be good for before it starts to tank. And it will tank. :rolleyes: All my reading over the weekend didn't help because folks out there are about evenly divided, and they all have detailed reasons why we absolutely will go up. Or absolutely will go down. :blink:

I may decide to lean on my most recent indicator: I've joined the ranks of the "Cramer Contrarian" camp. If Jim Cramer says black then I do white. So far it's working more often that not. :laugh:

Lady
 
XL-entLady said:
I'm trying to decide how many days this rally is going to be good for before it starts to tank. And it will tank. :rolleyes: All my reading over the weekend didn't help because folks out there are about evenly divided, and they all have detailed reasons why we absolutely will go up. Or absolutely will go down. :blink:

I may decide to lean on my most recent indicator: I've joined the ranks of the "Cramer Contrarian" camp. If Jim Cramer says black then I do white. So far it's working more often that not. :laugh:

Lady
Click to expand...

Great strategy! We are in a bear market until proven otherwise...and "otherwise" is not in sight based on fundamentals.
 
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